Is that a threat or a promise?

Again, I have fought bringing up this topic for all kinds of reasons.

I suspect that I’m going to tee off people I hold dear who still choose to live in that environment. I also know that some in this country view Europe as the “promised land”.

But, having stuck a toe in the water, it’s time to dive in because procrastination is not going to make it feel any warmer.

One of the reasons that Europe could contemplate their Socialist lifestyle is because, for the most part, they don’t have to spend the money on military expenditures because the US provides their strategic defense.

But even being excused from those fiscal chores is not enough, it seems, to ensure Utopia and pay for it.

Ostensibly, this post is not about Obama but let’s wait until we get to the end and perhaps it will be.

They are called the PIGS — Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain. What they have in common is that all are facing deficits and debts that could bring on national defaults and break up the European Union.

What brought the PIGS to the edge of the abyss?

All are neo-socialist states that provide welfare for poor people, generous unemployment, universal health care, early retirement and comfortable pensions. Most of those programs consume 40 percent to 50 percent of their gross domestic product annually which is a crushing burden on the private sector.

Dying populations is a second cause.

After two world wars, the Europeans lost their faith and embraced hedonism and materialism, “la dolce vita”. Large families fell out of favor. Women put off marriage and babies, and went to work. Birth control and abortion were made readily available in every country and, if not, just across the border.

For 30 years, the fertility rate of Europe has been below the 2.1 children per woman necessary to replace a population. In Russia and Ukraine, a million people disappear yearly. In Western Europe, the passing of the native-born goes on quietly, as Third World peoples come to fill the empty spaces left by the aborted and unconceived.

Turks are in Germany. Pakistanis, Indians, Arabs and Caribbean peoples are in Britain. Algerians, Tunisians and Moroccans occupy the southern coast of France and the banlieues around Paris.

These newcomers have neither the education nor skills of the Europeans. Hence, they earn less and contribute less in taxes, but consume more per capita in social benefits.

As the number of young entering the European labor forces shrinks, the number of seniors and aged grows. And thanks to advances in medicine, these retirees live lengthening lives. Thus the burden of pensions and health care grows steadily and the need for higher taxes and larger worker contributions increases.

Then there is globalization. In Europe, wages and taxes are high, regulations heavy, unions strong, and lawyers ubiquitous.

Manufacturers, to cut costs, have been outsourcing production to where the labor is cheap and abundant, the unions are nonexistent or weak, and health, safety and environmental regulations are lax.

Welcome to China.

Greece is the first European nation to hit the wall. As an EU member state, she is obligated to keep her deficit to 3 percent of GDP. But this year's is 12.7 percent, and Athens needs to issue $75 billion in bonds alone to finance the deficit and roll-over debt. The markets, however, are rating Greek bonds as risky bonds.

To borrow, Athens must pay more than twice the interest rate which Germany pays. Faced with strikes by public employees and students, Athens appears to lack the political will to make the cuts necessary to bring the budget back toward balance.

As Portugal, Ireland and Spain gaze on, Greece approaches a moment of truth. Should she default, their bonds, too will plunge in value out of fear of a copycat default, and the interest rate they pay would also rise. They, too, might then take the Argentine road.

Is there a way out?

One option is for the EU to bail out Greece with a huge loan. But if Greece cannot meet her debt obligations now, how could she pay back the loan? And if the EU cannot compel Greece to make deep budget cuts today, what leverage would the EU have after bailing out Athens and removing today's pressure on the government?

A second option is to call in the International Monetary Fund, which imposes tough conditions on nations receiving IMF loans — the Third World therapy. But problems would arise here, too.

First, it would be an admission that the EU cannot manage its own household.

Second, the largest contributor to the IMF is Uncle Sam aka you and I. Why should America bail out Greece, when the EU is larger and richer?

Where Greece is at today, however, we may all arrive tomorrow.

In every Western nation, government is growing beyond the capacity of taxpayers to bear. Deficits and debt are surging. Not enough children are being born to replace parents. The immigrant poor who consume more than they contribute are coming to take the empty places. Seniors and elderly are growing as a share of the population. Companies are saying goodbye to the West and moving offshore to low-wage lands.

The West begins to look like yesterday, while the East begins to look like tomorrow.

The West is approaching a crisis of solvency and of democracy. We shall see if democracy, which grew popular lavishing benefits upon all, is strong enough to start clawing them away. Or will democracy try to keep piling the burden on the producers until they rebel or depart?

Will Obama hear this fire bell in the night from across the Atlantic?

Somehow I doubt it because ingrained Socialist beliefs make very effective ear plugs.

Even in Minnesota .........

I’m trying something new which is to incorporate some graphics and/or pictures into this Blog and so, I thought I’d start with this.

This picture has recently appeared by the side of an Interstate in Minnesota. You can tell it’s from there by the frigid landscape and the leafless trees. Oops and it’s a big Oops, that could apply to the vast majority of this Nation this winter. There are 3 major benefits. For a start it ticks off the liberals where ever they are. And it shows that, even in Minnesota which is not the most conservative of states, there are still those who think. And it gives a tweak to Al Gore. Where is he in the middle of the coldest season for years?

It is moments like this which cause the White House to lash out. Does their petulance show no bounds? Well, probably not when one considers the spoiled little boy in the Oval Office. Consider this …….

Yesterday, White House deputy national security adviser John Brennan denounced conservatives for criticizing his boss’s boss because he claimed that such criticism aided Al Qaeda and others.

Funny how that never occurred to him and his fellow Democrats when George W. Bush was in the White House and this is what he said.

“Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. They will, however, be dismantled and destroyed, by our military, our intelligence services and our law enforcement community. And the notion that America’s counterterrorism professionals and America’s system of justice are unable to handle these murderous miscreants is absurd.“

The Democrats don’t have a very long memory, nor do they have much of an attention span. Let’s take a trip down Nancy Pelosi’s memory lane shall we?

“Bush is an incompetent leader. In fact, he’s not a leader,” Pelosi said. “He’s a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon.” “He has on his shoulders the deaths of many more troops, because he would not heed the advice of his own State Department of what to expect after May 1 when he … declared that major combat is over,” Pelosi charged. “The shallowness that he has brought to the office has not changed since he got there.”“Not to get personal about it, but the president’s capacity to lead has never been there. In order to lead, you have to have judgment. In order to have judgment, you have to have knowledge and experience. He has none,” Pelosi said.“This president has demonstrated very clearly that he does not have the capacity to present a plan to transition,” she said. “he only way we can get more troops from other countries is to have a president who respects the other countries. It’s hopeless for George Bush. He has made it hopeless.”

Brennan and others in his party are now worried that the Obama Administration’s failures most especially in the area of Foreign Policy might just result in a loss of power and a lot of Democrats sitting on their own front porches come December 2010. They have good reason to fear just that but still seem to be under the impression that the only reason anyone is criticizing Obama is because of some perceived political gain:

Then he went on to say, “Politics should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.”

Apparently Brennan didn’t tie off with Pelosi before making such a claim:

“The risk in many of us speaking out in the way that I’m speaking out to you right now is that people will say, ‘Oh, it’s just political,’ ” Pelosi said.

But to return to the main theme of criticizing presidents and their policy, let’s not forget one of Hilary’s screeches on the campaign trail, “We have a right to debate and disagree with any administration, and to suggest otherwise is unpatriotic.”

But to answer the question asked at the start of this post.

Yes, Mr. President, I do miss you and so do millions of others across our country.

Perhaps, not quite yet from sea to shining sea but certainly from our northern border to Nogales.

G-d Bless America!

Obama Defense Force?

I’m really not one for conspiracy theories but this has me wondering ………

Back in 2008, Congress authorized the creation of the “Council of Governors” as part of the “National Defense Reauthorization Act”. But Obama waited until now to activate it.

Let’s talk about what that is and then you can decide for yourself.

As currently proposed, it will consist of the governors of 10 states. Half of them are Democrats and the other half are Republicans.

The “charter” of this group is to “exchange views, information, or advice …. on matters involving the National Guard, homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.”

Now you can parse those words three ways from next Sunday but one phrase sprang into my mind and that phrase is "Martial Law". Oh Boy, are these guys worried or what?

Clearly, every governor of every state has the constitutional authority to mobilize their own National Guard. What is new here is the possibility of doing just that across state lines.

Why would they want to do that? Well, look at one member of this “Council”, namely Governor Jay Nixon of the great state of Missouri. He was the author of the letter to the Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano in which he warned about ex-military personnel as likely internal security threats. Then Secretary Janet lumped those patriots in with “right-wing militias”, gun owners and anybody else she and her boss didn’t like.

And now we start to see where all this concern came from.

On the one hand, the “Tea Party” held its first convention in Nashville, Tennessee this past weekend and that followed on the heels of the election losses in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. On the other, is a Gallup poll today which showed that 80% of Americans disapprove of the liberal Democratic Congress. And the same poll shows that 90% of independents share that same view. Remember those, the people who actually decide elections.


As I said, inside the Beltway they sense the pitchforks being retrieved from the barns and the smell of torches being lighted.

Let’s see who’s right?

Thought for the Day

Well, it's SuperBowl Sunday when this Nation can subliminate domestic worries for a couple of hours. However, I was sent the text that follows and, while I wish I'd written it I did not. Nor do I know who did.


"The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency.

It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president.

The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.

The republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."


Again, H.L Mencken springs to mind when he observed that "Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the American people".

Go Saints but, I must confess, I think the Colts will prevail.

"We The People" .............

Article II of the United States Constitution says it all …………

“No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; …

Up to now, I have resisted this topic for many reasons.

About 40 years ago, I yanked my baby daughter's wrist as she tried yet again to pull a plug from an outlet and poke a little finger somewhere in between. Of course, my daughter yelled and so did her mother. But I remember picking her up and sitting on the couch with her as the yells started to subside into sobs. And, just before she nodded off, I said, "Sweetie pick your battles, because this one you were never going to win”.

Some will scream about decades-old child abuse and others will wonder where the heck we’re going with this post.

Now I agree that the evidence grows and grows, judging by the number of lawsuits both filed and pending, that there may be real reasons to question this man’s eligibility. After all, one has to produce some evidence of one’s natal origin for all kinds of reasons. Getting a passport springs to mind.

The point is, if we assume for the sake of the “Birthers,” that Obama does not qualify under Article II, what do we do then?

I suspect that, the perks of the White House apart such as Air Force One and the imperatives of Saul Alinsky’s doctrines, he’d love to leave the job. Perhaps he wouldn't go back to breaking heads in the hood but I'm sure he'd find work that was meaningful to him. How about Al Jazeera for a gig? Of course, Michelle would kill him if he resigned, but let’s assume he’s gone by whatever mechanism, we’d wind up with Joe Biden.

Now, we all know that, in spite of the hugs much evident at photo ops, Obama and Biden don’t like each other very much and I doubt that Biden would do much of anything if he wound up in the Oval Office. And there is good reason to believe that mainly because he doesn't know anything and he's never had an original thought in his life. But, and there's usually a "but" .............

And the but is, for conservatives like me, that would be very bad news indeed.

So, Birthers, please back off. Not because you may not be right but because you may win that battle but lose the bigger war.

The longer Obama stays there while the Constitution runs it’s course, the better become our chances of destroying the liberal left in this country and consigning it to the obscurity of political Purgatory for the rest of my lifetime. And then it's up to those who follow.

G-d Bless America!

Black Friday ...... If you're Obama

Last year Obama did not attend the National Prayer Breakfast. Perhaps the date clashed with some Muslim festival or an organized mugging by the Service Employees Union.

Or maybe, just like W who had a problem with “nuclear”, Obama knew he had a mental block with the word “corpsman”. But this year that word came up again and Obama mangled it, twice!

No wonder he let his petty frustrations show as he wondered why he was in his job in the first place. Well, we’ve already discussed that he has a very short attention span and that his typical tenure in any job is about 2 years. For the first time in his life he faces criticism and he does not like it. Now very few people do especially politicians but they take it as part of the job but not Obama. He takes every barb personally whether they’re deserved or not. Tough! Obama it’s only going to get worse.

Let’s do a quick review if I may. Obama was going to:

Kill off Fox News. Didn’t happen.
Win the Olympics for Chicago. Didn’t happen.
Close Gitmo. Didn’t happen.
Get Healthcare passed. Didn’t happen.
End wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Didn’t happen.
Cap unemployment at 8%. Didn’t happen and we’re now at 10.

What did happen was that Obama and his team repeatedly threw proposed and actual cabinet members under the bus and I won’t bore you with that list because we’ve talked about it before.

And how can we forget the influence of Obama, first on Virginia and then on New Jersey and most famously and latterly on “Teddy’s Seat”.

Then there was his determination to move the terrorist trials to NYC. Good luck Obama. Here’s an idea; let’s hold those trials in DC because, after all, 911 was an attack on the whole country and not just on New York. Or better yet, put the trial on Capitol Hill or in the White House because we know the security there is first class.

So with all those successes under his belt no wonder Obama needed a party and so he’s planned one for the Super Bowl on Sunday and he invited all 4 senators from Indiana and Louisiana. Every one declined.

These people are running away from Obama as fast as they can run. And the media is in on the stampede as well and the latest two that I know about are Christopher Buckley and Bob Herbert. The former is the son of William F. who must have been turning in his grave until the son just wrote an article called “The Audacity of Oops”. And the other is a writer for the New York Times who recently penned a column entitled, “ Who is Barack Obama?”

Too bad that he and his employer didn’t ask that question and others like it a couple of years ago.

To me, the bottom line is exactly that of Bob Herbert’s. Who is Obama? A radio host this week offered 3 choices. He’s a Marxist. He’s an Ideologue. He’s an Idiot. I would offer one more. He’s a Liar.

Or, perhaps, as the Mayor of Las Vegas put it, “He’s a Slow Learner”.

And, so it seems are Democratic politicians as a herd. Rumor has it that, having failed with healthcare, Obama may spur them to tackle his next priority which is "Immigration Reform".

Oh Boy, I do hope they do because that would be the coup de grace in the midterms in 2010. If the Hill thought that healthcare raised a firestorm, they’ve seen nothing yet.

Oh G-d, Please, Please, Pretty Please ……… Don’t pull the stupidity gene just yet.

And two final indignities if I may.

The “Obama Store” at the Union Station in Washington DC has closed. And the “Obama Girl” is looking for a new beau.

Happy Friday!!

The Fox and the Chicken House ..............

One of the biggest mistakes that this White House has made in the past 13 months was to attack Fox News. Not that I care one way or the other and I certainly don’t have any skin in the game but the furor caused people to take a look at the cable news channels.

And that included Fox, of course, but while they were in that part of the media spectrum, some viewers took a look at CNN and MSNBC as well. Well that backfired didn’t it? Fox is, and has been for the last 2 months by far the leader in terms of market share.

Honestly, and I do try to be honest, I think there are at least 2 reasons for that. For a start, when the viewers punched that station up on their remote, they found news. Admittedly it had a conservative slant but the alternatives were even worse. And their alternatives are what? Heck, even Headline News beat out CNN even with their resident Al-Jazeera apologist.

So now we come to MSNBC. Way back we had little Chrissy Matthew’s tingly leg. Then he outdid himself last week with the “temporary Black amnesia” bit.

But MSNBC hasn’t nearly run out of kooks yet while they still have Keith Olbermann who has to be one of the most angry people in the world except for Barney Frank and, perhaps, Obama’s wife.

Anyway, Olbermann refused to be outdone and so he has just pronounced the “Anointed One”, as one of the thousand top brains in this country.

Now I really felt better. But only for the briefest of moments. Because that was when I started looking at Obama’s budget.

The total bill is, according to Obama, $3.8 Trillion and I won’t bore you again by some meaningless exercise about what a trillion really looks like. Instead though I had a flash-back to the 2008 campaign trail when Obama, just before he fed the masses with an impossibly small number of loaves and fishes, declared that President Bush’s latest deficit was “unsustainable”.

That deficit was under $500 billion while today’s projection is $1.6 Trillion. More than 3 times the “unsustainable”.

But he did announce cuts, all of which will cost jobs. Probably to the tune of more than 500,000. Does Wal-Mart need that many more “greeters”?

For a start, manned space flight is off or we’ll just have to thumb a ride from the Russians or somebody. NASA, it seems, is destined to monitor “Global Warming” which we know is bad science, failed science, disproved science but the myth fits Obama’s agenda which is all about control.

I spent the bulk of my working life in the computer industry and we’ve all seen the rooms full of processors and disk drives and printers and consoles which constituted the mainframe era.

But now you have your PC or Mac at home. You have your DVR. You have your iPhone. Put just your home PC and your DVR and your cell phone together and also add the processors in your car and you have way more computer cycles than all that room-full of equipment. And the driving force was NASA and the need to build smaller, faster, smarter

Now they won’t get it, but when the mouth-breathing liberals tell you that the only positive things to come out of the NASA programs were Tang and Velcro and pens that write upside-down, tell em,

Send me a text message!.

And then ask 'em how it was going to to get from them to you.

Duh! And the eyes glaze over!